System and method for organizing and training team athletic players

ABSTRACT

A system and method for organizing and training players for participation in a team sport. Player skills are evaluated relative to positions for a type of sport and player position ratings for use in organizing a team of players and further developing player skills is displayed. The method may include selecting a set of skills important for an athlete to be a successful soccer player; establishing a player evaluation measure for assigning a player evaluation value to a player based on observing player performance; identifying the importance of each skill in the set of skills for each of the player positions for a soccer team and assigning an importance rating value for the skill and position; calculating a weighted evaluation value and determining the average weighted evaluation value for a player&#39;s skills; and determining a player position rating for a player for each player position on a soccer team.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to systems and methods for evaluating athletic ability for organizing and training players for participation in a team sport. The new system and method evaluates player skills related to positions for team play and presents player position ratings for use in organizing a team of players and further developing player skills.

Systems, equipment and methods may be known for measuring and evaluating key athletic ability and player skills, for example, athlete running speed, kicking speed, swinging speed that may be related to a bat, ball throwing speeds for a particular sport, and other like parameters and activities. Agility and strength are often other factors directly measured for an athlete to estimate individual performance.

Various of these systems and methods use equipment and facilities for specific sports such as baseball, football, and soccer as well as others. Often the players and devices for playing in the sport are instrumented in order to monitor where a ball is relative to a player or how a device was used by a player when practicing or playing a game. Parameters or metrics for play of the game are monitored and evaluated. The use of charts and graphs may be used to evaluate a player or a group of player's performances.

The use of formulas or calculations to evaluate selected parameters collected for athletes play in selected sports has also been disclosed, see for example U.S. Pat. No. 8,308,615, issued on Nov. 13 2012. The types of methods used in evaluating or calculating and predicting athlete ability do not provide a method to organize and train a sports team such as a soccer team as well as develop players at various positions for improvement of the team and players. The various methods for currently discovered calculations and evaluations are not specific concerning the skills necessary for the various player positions of a particular sport such as soccer. Most often skills such as passing are evaluated as an overall skill rather than as a five element skill as in soccer for short passing, raised long passing, through ball/passing, pass selection/vision, and one touch passing. When a skill is not correctly evaluated for a player position on a team there is a loss of accuracy and relationship/relevance to each position for organizing a team to play the game.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to systems and methods for organizing and training players for participation in a team sport. Player skills are evaluated relative to positions for a type of sport team play and displays are presented for player position ratings for use in organizing a team of players and further developing player skills. The method may include selecting a set of skills important for an athlete to be a successful soccer player; establishing a player evaluation measure for assigning a player evaluation value to a player based on observing player performance; identifying the importance of each skill in the set of skills for each of the player positions for a soccer team and assigning an importance rating value for the skill and position; establishing a scale multiplier value for each importance rating value to weight the importance rating value; multiplying a player's evaluation measure for each skill times the scale multiplier value to obtain a weighted evaluation measure; summing the weighted evaluation measures for a player's skills and determining the average weighted evaluation value; and determining a player position rating for a player for each player position on a soccer team.

These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following drawings, description and claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a table of skills for athletes for the play of soccer according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 2A and 2B illustrate a table of skills organized by category of skills for a soccer player position of sweeper with an importance rating value for each skill for a sweeper according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 3A and 3B illustrate a table of skills for a soccer player position with an evaluation rating for each skill for a representative player according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 4A and 4B illustrate a table of skills for a soccer player sweeper position with a weighted evaluation measure for each skill according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates a matrix of player positions and team players for a soccer team with players position ratings entered in the matrix according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 6A and 6B illustrates two side-by-side individual player table score values according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 7 illustrates a table of individual players with an evaluation rating for development as a player according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIGS. 8A and 8B illustrate a table of skills for athletes for the position of goal keeper according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 9A, 9B and 9C illustrate a table of average team scores for players on a team for each skill and a pie chart of the weight for each group of skills by area according to an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description represents the best currently contemplated modes for carrying out the invention. The description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, but is made merely for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the invention.

Referring to FIG. 1 through 4, a list of skills for athletes for the play of soccer is illustrated. The list of skills by area as listed in FIGS. 1A and 1B is important in order to obtain a representative result for each athlete for rating of players for a team in order to properly organize the team and plan improvement of player skills. While the description of the system and method is based on the play of soccer by a sports team the system and method may be used for other team sports based on an accurate list of skills for the type of sport and an importance rating for the type of sport for each skill.

Referring to FIG. 2, the list of skills for a soccer player for the position of sweeper on a soccer team is illustrated. The list of skills has been modified with an importance rating value or input rating scale value to illustrate the relative importance of each skill for the position of a sweeper on a soccer team. The input rating scale value for each skill may be different for some skills based on the soccer player position, for example, a sweeper and an attacker for a soccer team may both have the skill of 1v1 attacking listed, but the sweeper may be rated 1.25 for importance and the attacker may be rated 2.5 for importance. A goal keeper position may not even include the 1v1 attacking skill listed as a skill for rating.

An importance input rating scale value for use in comparing skills for each type of player position for soccer based on the skills listed in FIG. 1 has been found by experiment to be 1.25, 1.50, 1.75, 2.00, 2.25, and 2.50, with 1.25 as the lowest value and 2.50 as the highest value. These values are chosen for each skill to establish the relative importance of a skill for each player position on the soccer team. The values may be characterized as primary-high 2.50, primary-low 2.25, secondary-high 2.00, secondary-low 1.75, tertiary-high 1.50, and tertiary-low 1.25.

Each input rating value is assigned a rating scale multiplier as a weighting value or factor in the calculation of a player and position rating. It has been found by experiment that scale multipliers for each input rating value to allow differentiation between player evaluations that are significant enough to select team players for playing proper positions based on skills evaluation are as follows:

Scale Multiplier Values Importance Scale Multiplier Rating Value Value 1.25 16,667 1.50 17,857 1.75 25,000 2.00 27,778 2.25 50,000 2.50 250,000

The magnitude of 250,000 was selected by experiment based on the number of high primary skills for various soccer player positions. The lower scale multiplier values are ⅕, 1/9, 1/10, 1/14, and 1/15 of the 250,000 high primary skill scale multiplier value. Other ratio numbers were investigated and could be used; however, they tend to make the position rating value determination more complex than may be necessary for player position evaluation and selection.

A player evaluation measure is subjectively or objectively assigned for each of the skills of an athlete or player such as a soccer player by coaches, scouts, agents or others, see FIG. 3. Some skills may be measured using instruments, for example, maximum speed, and others may be subjective observations made by others such as coaches, for example, ground ball control. The range of the player evaluation values is 55 to 100 with the following scale for values of development need: 55 or 60, basic 65 or 70, moderate 75 or 80, strong 85 or 90, and high 95 or 100.

The evaluation values or scores for each skill of a player are multiplied by the scale multiplier value for the same skill for each player position to obtain a weighted evaluation measure for each skill for a player, see FIG. 4. The weighted evaluation measures are summed and divided by the total number of skills to obtain an average weighted evaluation value for a player for a particular position. The average weighted evaluation value is multiplied by a rating factor to obtain a player position rating for a player for a player position on a soccer team. The rating factor is calculated with the skills in a column with the player scores all entered as 100, the maximum rating, to then be multiplied by each rating scale multiplier, the results to then be summed and the sum to be divided by the total number of skills to obtain a maximum average of scores times rating scale multipliers. This is then factored to obtain a maximum position factor multiplier unique to each position to then multiply each player's average of scores times rating scale multipliers sum to obtain a current position rating value for each player, see FIG. 5.

The process is repeated for each position for each player on a soccer or sports team. A matrix with rows identified as player positions and columns with each player name is then populated with the calculated player position ratings, see FIG. 5. This matrix can be evaluated by a user, such as a coach to determine which team players should play which positions for a soccer game based on the player position ratings.

The player position ratings may also be displayed for an individual player to determine, plan and counsel a player on how to improve or further develop certain skills for a particular player position or as a two side-by-side individual player table of score values to compare two players strengths and weaknesses to plan development of player skills for position specific strategies, see FIG. 6. Development ratings for each player on a team may also be calculated using the same method as described above, but the weighting for each area and skill may emphasize the psychological and physical skills as being the most likely to identify players able to quickly learn and may deemphasize the tactical and technical skills. An example development rating chart is illustrated in FIG. 7. The player position ratings may also be displayed adjacent one to another with the right hand column containing the player positions for a team for ease of player position ratings comparisons to evaluate similarities for example for purposes of substitution in games or for injuries, see FIG. 5. The matrix illustrated in FIG. 5 may also be used to evaluate substitution strategies, depth of players for each position and quick tactical substitutions. It may also be used to determine player positions requiring further development and for recruiting players. The matrix allows ease of evaluating the range of skills separating players for various positions.

The player position of goal keeper on a soccer team has different skills needs due to the nature of the position as compared to the field positioned as illustrated and calculated for FIGS. 1 through 5. The skills by area to be evaluated for each player as a goal keeper are illustrated in FIG. 8. These skills for each player to be considered as a goal keeper would be developed and calculated in the same way as that done for the field positions as illustrated in FIGS. 1 through 5.

The player skills for soccer illustrated in FIGS. 6 A and 6B may be expanded to include all the players of the team in the columns. The score for each player in a row may be summed and then averaged to obtain a set of team scores or evaluation statistics as illustrated in FIGS. 9A and 9B. These team evaluation statistics may be used for dynamic development and coaching of a team. The skill average for each skill of the team allows comparisons between areas such as technical attaching and technical defense of determine if the team is weak or strong as an attacking team or defending team. Further, within a skills area the skills that are high or low can be highlighted to determine actions to be taken for the improvement of the team. For those skills identified as needing improvement the table illustrated in FIGS. 6 A and 6B can be used to determine which players need training, players can be trained individually or as a group, more skilled players train with less skilled players, and the like. It may also be used to determine depth of players for each position, player positions requiring further development and for recruiting players. The four corner pie graphic chart illustrated in FIG. 9C portrays the relative importance of each skills area for determining future actions, for example, for development of existing players the psychological and physical areas are 24 percent of the total and are important for training and development of existing players, the tactical area that is 22 percent of the total is a category of skills that also identify mental abilities that are useful in development and leaning and may be combined with the psychological and physical areas for an overall total of 46 percent, and the technical areas of which there are three represent 54 percent of the total and are a consideration for areas of recruitment of players for more immediate improvement of overall team performance.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described with respect to the illustrated embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the foregoing and other changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. 

I claim:
 1. A method to organize a team of soccer players comprising: a) selecting a set of skills important for an athlete to be a successful soccer player; b) establishing a player evaluation measure for assigning a player evaluation score to a player based on observing player performance; c) identifying the importance of each of the total number of skills in the set of skills for each of the player positions for a soccer team and assigning an importance rating value for each skill and each position; d) establishing a rating scale multiplier value for each importance rating value to weight the importance rating value; e) multiplying a player's evaluation measure score for each skill times the rating scale multiplier value to obtain a weighted evaluation measure; f) summing the weighted evaluation measures for a player's skills and determining the average weighted evaluation value; and g) determining a player position rating for a player for each player position on a soccer team.
 2. The method as in claim 1 wherein the process of 10 to determine the average weighted evaluation value further comprising: dividing the summed weighted evaluation measures by the total number of skills to obtain an average weighted evaluation value.
 3. The method as in claim 1 wherein the process of 1g) to determine a player position rating further comprising: determining a rating factor using player evaluation measure scores of 100 entered for all skills multiplied by each rating scale multiplier to obtain the weighted evaluation measures that are then summed and that sum is then divided by the total number of skills to obtain a maximum average weighted evaluation value that is then factored to obtain a maximum position factor multiplier for each player position; and multiplying the summed weighted evaluation measures by the maximum position factor multiplier for the selected player position.
 4. The method as in claim 2 wherein the total number of skills is 65 skills as illustrated in FIG.
 1. 5. The method as in claim 1 wherein the set of skills is grouped in six areas as illustrated in FIG.
 1. 6. The method as in claim 1 wherein the importance rating values are 1.25, 1.50, 1.75, 2.00, 2.25, and 2.50, with 1.25 as the lowest value and 2.50 as the highest value.
 7. The method as in claim 6 wherein the scale multiplier values are as follows: Scale Multiplier Values Importance Scale Multiplier Rating Value Value 1.25 16,667 1.50 17,857 1.75 25,000 2.00 27,778 2.25 50,000 2.50 250,000


8. The method as in claim 1 wherein the player evaluation score values are in a range of 55 to 100 with the following scale for values of development needed 55 to 60, basic 65 to 70, moderate 75 to 80, strong 85 to 90, and high 95 to
 100. 9. The method as in claim 1 wherein the process of 1c) is modified to identify the importance of each skill in the set of skills to a player for development of a player's skill for playing soccer and assigning a rating value for the skill.
 10. The method as in claim 9 wherein identifying the importance of each skill in the set of skills includes assigning an importance rating value for each skill that emphasizes the psychological and physical areas of skills with more importance that the tactical area, and the skills of the tactical area with more importance than the skills of the three technical areas.
 11. The method as in claim 1 wherein a player's position rating is displayed and printed for use in player counseling.
 12. The method as in claim 1 wherein the players' on a team of soccer players player position ratings are displayed in columns in a matrix correlated with each player position for the soccer team.
 13. The method as in claim 1 wherein the player evaluation measures of at least two of the players on the soccer team are displayed in columns in a table correlated with each skill.
 14. The method as in claim 1 wherein the player weighted evaluation measures of a team of soccer players are summed by each skill and the average weighted evaluation value for each skill is determined for a team score for each skill.
 15. The method as in claim 14 wherein a table of skills and team scores is displayed for the soccer team. 